First off, congrats on feeling better, Bill. And secondly thanks for validating a thought I recently had about stretching and rehab exercise. I think that as the patient we feel that the only thing we can control is how diligently we do what the physical therapists tell us to do. My PT has be doing stretching and exercise three times a day. I have been doing my best to keep up with this regimen but it is getting a bit too much I think. I am actually experiencing problems with other parts of my leg, knees, good hip, etc. It's just that I want to get back to normal so much that I will do anything to get there and sometimes I am my own worst enemy. So, although it is too early to just quite doing stretching and exercises I am going to back off a little to see how that works. Sometimes less is more.
Keep getting better,
Jerry
Thanks Jerry and Logan,
Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in PT and stretching, you have to rebuild all those muscles that were cut, tugged on and pulled out of the way out of the way, not to mention their decline in use over the years as the hip got worse and worse. But sometimes you need to listen to your body and take a break I guess ? I don't know... Throughout my whole recovery it has seemed like there is a very fine line between doing too much vs. not enough. Too little and you don't make much progress and feel like your stagnating, too much and you go backwards and create a bunch of pain and stress for yourself. The frustrating part about that fine line for me was you don't really know if you've crossed it until the next day when you're telling yourself "Oh shit I shouldn't have done that" Haha.
I really don't know why it took me so long to recover and get to the point I'm at, I did the pt I was supposed to, and as soon as I could work, I worked. I finaly got to where I was working 8 hours+ a day and was too sore and tired to do the exercises at night. I started concentrating on getting more sleep and rest after work instead of an hours worth of exercises and yanking my leg every wich way to gain r.o.m. back, and lo and behold the work during the day began to hurt less and less. Maybe the work cleaning pools is enough pt now ? Maybe it would have taken me almost two years to get strong and pain free no matter what my program was ? Maybe my muscles had to be "re-trained" to get used to the different geometry due to my steep and shallow cup ? Maybe the doctor was a hack and chopped through way more good parts than needed ? (My scar is one of the longest I've heard of) Maybe I was too fat and out of shape or waited too long to have the surgery ? Maybe I'm kidding myself and my leg will come off next week ?, I don't know
All I know for sure is that since I backed off a little the progress has been better, and for that I am extremely gratefull
I can't tell you how good it feels to type some good news in this forum, I don't know how long any of you have been reading my posts but trust me I've been all over the map, some docs said leave it, some said re-do it asap, and some said who knows....hopefully my current trend will continue. I have actually gone for hours and sometimes a day or 2 without thinking about my hip, and that hasn't happened for almost 10 years.
Good luck to all and thanks for taking the time to read this, Bill.
Topic: 21 Months and finally happy !! (Read 2354 times)
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